You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Angels Take Two Against the Yankees! …Oh. Yeah. And That Play Too.

Peter Bourjos dropped the ball and then made a truly terrible throw. Oh no! Head for the hills! The sky is falling! The world is coming to an end! The Angels are finished! And, and, there’s no Santa Clause either!

Come on all you gloom and doomers. Yes, you really do sound that silly. The Angels just won the series against the Yankees, something we haven’t been able to do all season. And they won it with two days of stellar pitching and three days of offense each of which on it’s own could have been the entire offensive output for a whole series earlier in the season. And – and this is a huge and! – we kept pace with the Rangers in the standings over the weekend.

Yes, the boys were awfully close to sweeping and gaining yet another game on the Rangers and that makes the error especially disappointing, but let’s put this in perspective. A brilliant young centerfielder who has been one of the highlights of the season for so many of us this year, had a really bad day defensively…and it wasn’t even the whole day, though I am aware this play wasn’t the only gaff, just the biggest. That’s all that happened. 99.99% of the time he would have made the catch. Yesterday he didn’t. But he took responsibility for it to in the clubhouse without any drama, so hat’s off Peter. That’s the Angels way! Suffice to say, this is not the end of the world. The sky is not falling. The Angels are far from finished. And this error is not even solely responsible for the loss, even though the offense didn’t have three entire innings afterwards to score one more run and at least tie it up again…Oh. Wait. They did.

Okay, so that part about Santa Clause not being real? That was true but, I mean, you knew that already. Right? …Right? Oooops. *face palm* Um, you there. The rather young fellow in the back there who’s crying? Yeah, you. Sorry kid! Better go call your mom. Anyway, moving right along…

This series the Angels faced the Yankees while the Rangers faced the A’s whom they have owned all season. Gaining a game on the Rangers over the weekend was very unlikely. Keeping pace with them over the weekend given those two matchups was quite an accomplishment. Now we’re in Oakland for three days with one of my favorite lineups this evening and Jerome Williams and Jered Weaver headed for the mound Tuesday and Wednesday and the Rangers are headed to Cleveland. Remember how I’ve been saying September is going to be a two steps forward, one step back again kind of a month? The Angels took one step forward and another step right back over the weekend and this week they’re going to take that second step forward!!

Errors and mistakes are part of having a young line up. From the few games I’ve seen Bourjos play, it looks to me like he’s made a lot more catches that he shouldn’t have made vs. ones he should have caught but didn’t. The guy can flat out run.

Absolutely Bluejaysnest. My favorite response to the over reaction to the error was Mitch Williams’ on MLBN the next day. Over an outright highlight real of amazing Bourjos catches this season, Mitch sarcastically said, “Yeah, yeah. Uh huh. The Angels should be worried about this kid.

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